How to Install VMware Server on Debian 4.0

This tutorial provides step-by-step instructions about how to install the free VMware Server (version 1.0.2) on a Debian Etch system. With VMware Server you can create and run guest operating systems (virtual machines) such as Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, etc. under a host operating system. This has the benefit that you can run multiple operating systems on the same hardware which saves a lot of money, and you can move virtual machines from one VMware Server to the next one (or to a system that has the VMware Player which is also free). Also, VMware acquired the VDI provider Propero.

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This may sound stupid, but why you need other operating system in emulator on server? Your favorite OS works inefficiently? Why not just isolate separate processes with SELinux, MAC (Mandatory Access Control on FreeBSD), Jails (originates from FreeBSD and also available on Linux).

Emulation is stupid and waste of processing power IMHO. I’d like to hear comment from Greenpeace…

emulation/virtualisation can be more efficient – for N physical severs you can have M instances of an OS with an application stack running, where typically M>N.

in essense, you’re using all those idle cycles – i’d like to hear from Greenpeace about all those servers idle 99% of the time!

there are other benefits too ..

* excellent for software development, OS development, testing, especially as you can freeze and take OS snapshots. you can install and debug without real hardware and install media.

* you can provide OS/application stacks – there’s a webste full of “vmware images” from firewalls to fully confugured CMS systems…

* high availability – again when M>N. or you can migrate vmware insances around physical hardware to meet demand or in the event of hardware failure, in a cluster say.

there are some weaknesses which get overlooked by all the virtualisation hpe these days:

* if you’ve got a machine full og 15 vmware instances running – pull the powercord – and poof! all of them gone.

* they depend on the stability of the host OS. similar to above.

(migration of vmware instances around a cluster is now subsecond, and very fast with XEN, if you use appropriate shared SAN storage for your underlying disk images and memory can be moved too if there’s a chance)

Now really, two looooooooooong pages just to install VMWare Server on Linux compare to no more than a dozen clicks on Windows…and Linux fans are still saying Linux is easy to use?

Here’s another example? Try to pair a Linux system with a bluetooth phone (nokia)…What? I have to open an editor? Open a terminal? Type in about 6 commands just so that I can enable rfcomm (or whatever) and get the phone’s hardware ID…etc. Crap, try to ask a windows user about their phone’s hardware ID…they don’t know it. Wait, they don’t need to know it…because Windows is EASIER to use.

Another one. Try to set up dual monitor for XServer…crap, more config file editing…screw that!…oops, no, XServer is screwing me instead because the config file is now wrong. And why is this happening? Ah…yes, because it’s NOT ROBUST (which by definition means it should be able to handle exception/mis-use cases and self maintain to a useable level).

Don’t get me wrong, I tried to get over to Linux and ditch Windows about 6 months ago. And used Ubuntu for 3 months. During that time, I tried setting up VMWare Server, Bluetooth sync my Nokia phone, get dual display to work, “tune/fix” certain network card config (mii-tool or something to set a network driver paramter for Intel Pro/1000 on a T41P)…and I asked myself why did I get rid of Windows? Linux gave me more down time than ever, it didn’t help me to be more productive, but rather, I was spending more time get things to work than ever before.

Just ask yourself this: How many commands do you use in xterm in comparison to commands you use in the windows command prompt? How many config files do you have to know the location of and settings in Linux compare to in Windows?

Linux is just NOT READY for the masses! There’s no doubt that Linux is “getting” easier to use, but it’s still years behind Windows.

I simply don’t agree with you. Linux IS ready to use and is a reality. I can say this for you from a very comfortable view. Right now I have about 200 machines in my network, all of them running GNU/Linux perfectly and the users are very well pleased with the operating system. Amount of 70% of this users have more than 45 years old and just a 1 year of computer use experiences. They are what people call ‘dumb’ users.

Of course is a very different world since here, they are working and don’t need to install softwares because this is not allowed to them.

I can enumerate a lot of arguments to prove for you that GNU/Linux is a ready OS for the masses.

I simply don’t agree with you. Linux IS ready to use and is a reality. I can say this for you from a very comfortable view. Right now I have about 200 machines in my network, all of them running GNU/Linux perfectly and the users are very well pleased with the operating system. Amount of 70% of this users have more than 45 years old and just a 1 year of computer use experiences. They are what people call ‘dumb’ users.

Of course is a very different world since here, they are working and don’t need to install softwares because this is not allowed to them.

I can enumerate a lot of arguments to prove for you that GNU/Linux is a ready OS for the masses.

For typing up e-mails, documents, spreadsheets, surf the net…sure it works just fine. And if that’s the majority of computer users at your network, then yeah, it’s the masses.

Here (in HK), almost 95% of the people I work with (in IT) have a mobile device that needs syncing (some have even two or three…god knows why). Support for those hardware is not great in the linux world from a business stand point. We’re a bunch of tech guys and girls, solution specialists/consultants and engineers (software). We want things to happen fast without spending too much time on configuring things to get them to work. We need productivity, and not to waste time in the pre-productive phase.

Here’s another example…switching between displays (laptop’s LCD, external LCD (VGA & DVI), Projector) with different profiles on a laptop, really, I don’t want to quit X and have to restart my applications.

Movie codecs. Say, I only know that I need DivX, but have no idea about where nor how to get the codecs to work on my Linux (Ubuntu) or Windows. Let’s say that Google is the entry point, then on which system will I be able to watch the movie first with the default media player?

I don’t use Evolution but tested it just to see how far things have come. Installed MultiSync with the various plugins via synaptic, defined a pair between Evo and the IrMc/BT plugin (Mobile plugin) and sync between the two. Worked OK for the simple test.

I don’t use Evolution but tested it just to see how far things have come. Installed MultiSync with the various plugins via synaptic, defined a pair between Evo and the IrMc/BT plugin (Mobile plugin) and sync between the two. Worked OK for the simple test.

Hardware involved: Thinkpad X60s and Sony Ericsson K800i.

But how about the Wifi? When I was using Ubuntu 6.10, I had to edit some ACPI script files so that I can toggle WiFi on/off. Bluetooth toggle worked out of the box though (pairing was hell…).

So you’re saying that both wifi AND BT can be toggle on and off using Fn+F5 with 7.04 OOTB?

This is just as easy to in Ubuntu as it is in windows, using the same method. If you do a google search for any media format and then put ubuntu somewhere in the title, you will most likely get a easy to do solution. If a user was smart all they would have to do is download the proper gstreamer packages in synaptic, and Feisty pretty much does that out of the box. If the user was even smarter he they would read the help files that come with the distro that pretty much walk you through setting up all the proper media formats, and its just as easy to do as in windows if not easier in some cases.

Yes, I tried that (google), just now. Did a “divx windows” vs “divx ubuntu”. Then checked the first five links returned. The “divx unbuntu” search gave me…well, more typing to do to change repo, and more commands to type in the terminal. Of the first five pages retuned, only two talked about installing packages. And then of the two pages, one talked about installing VLC, and the other talked about installing three packages.

‘Movie codecs. Say, I only know that I need DivX, but have no idea about where nor how to get the codecs to work on my Linux (Ubuntu) or Windows. Let’s say that Google is the entry point, then on which system will I be able to watch the movie first with the default media player?’

This is just as easy to in Ubuntu as it is in windows, using the same method. If you do a google search for any media format and then put ubuntu somewhere in the title, you will most likely get a easy to do solution. If a user was smart all they would have to do is download the proper gstreamer packages in synaptic, and Feisty pretty much does that out of the box. If the user was even smarter he they would read the help files that come with the distro that pretty much walk you through setting up all the proper media formats, and its just as easy to do as in windows if not easier in some cases.

You might argue that there are almost double for Linux than Windows, but I counter and ask regarding your original question.

Windows is easy to use because you are used to it! People forget that all too quickly. Get a complete Newbie to use a pre-installed Linux or Windows machine and you will see that they are completely confounded by both.

to install vmware on debian 4 you just download it and run the script it comes with. it’s really not such a big deal. the hardest part is deciding whether or not you want to ask vmware for 100 free license keys or for 20 This tutorial is great for people who just learned what vmware is and/or are using linux for the first time, and/or using debian for the first time.

One big issue with this tutorial is that it installs everything under /usr, mixing it in with all the binaries/libraries/etc that come with Debian. Which means, it’s mixing files managed by apt with files not managed by apt. A very big no-no.

The install should be done to /usr/local to separate user-installed apps from system-installed apps. That’s the whole point of /usr/local.

But on a more serious note I love how people get so desparate to have a platform for attempting to make a point, that they will attack a tutorial. Tutorials are designed to be over informative and assume pretty much nothing, as a guide for the inexperienced. Sure the tutorial is 2 pages, one page for vmware server, one page for the web gui…but did any of the people complaining even bother to read it?

For the poorly educated and misinformed I will say the following:

1) half of the first page is dedicated to changing your ip address which you wouldnt NEED to do..its just good practice. And you would need to do the same thing on windows to set a static ip address.

2) We have several more steps outlining downloading and unpacking a file?..again if you don’t know hwo to do this is 2sec, you probably wouldn’t know how to do it in windows either.

3) And most importantly…the entire remainder of the page, of what looks like a daunting install is JUST FYI!!! Some people are simple clueless. He is mirroring the image for reference purposes but 99% of the information is pre-populated and detected. All the admin is doing is hitting one button. None of the setting in red actually require any input other than pressing the enter key. The only true install input is the serial number.

So what we have is 1/4 page to set a static ip. WINNER=TIE, takes about the same time in windows and linux to set a static ip.

1/4 page about downloading a file from the internet and unpacking it to a directory.

and 1/2 page of text copy from the screen of an install.

Take screenshots in windows in a legible manner and provide all commands in a legible for the same stuff on the front page and I would gather it to be about the same length.

There is no argument here, and this is a really silly place to stand on a soap box

I mean, I don’t think anyone could write a longer tutorial on installing vmware srv, geez. Reading this stuff takes about five times more than installing it that’s for sure. It’s ok that novices can get information from it, but come on, other will just feast like there’s no tomorrow since you prove them once again that in Linux nothing is easy. Which is not true [well, sometimes it is, but not in this case anyway].